Natural Green Landscapes vs. Highly Engineered Chemically Dependent Landscapes

1. February 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

The next time you visit an area of natural beauty and see the Green that nature creates, notice that the Green Living Landscape, when it is healthy, has not been chemically engineered, and yet it is beautiful, the plants are green. No one planted the trees and shrubs and no one pours bags of fertilizer and pesticides and fungicides into the area. No one runs their noisy dirty power tools to keep the landscape cut into graphic structures. The natural landscape, though without the touch of a talented designer,is a model for a truly Green landscape. It lives without all the engineering and chemicals that far too many gardeners today depend on.

While design is an important consideration for home gardens, continuing to grow plants that require so many chemicals in order to thrive is detrimental to the health of the living landscape. Chemicals in soil, air, water and even our food supply are reaching frightening proportions. The chemical load in our bodies is also at an all time high.

It just makes sense to stop growing plants and lawns that require so much engineering, so many chemicals. The carbon footprint of engineered landscapes may surprise you.  Gas power tools have a carbon footprint. The manufacturing of the chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fugicides produce more carbon footprints. The chemicals, when we make them a habit, become part of the landscape, our air, water, soil, food and bodies. Many of these contaminants are known to have deleterious health affects, many are known  carcinogens.

The wonderful thing is, there are so many wonderful plants that can thrive in any landscape provided one plants the right plant in the right place. Planting plants in conditions where they thrive, one begins to create a Green garden.

Consider for example, those who force sickly hybrid tea roses to live in south Florida gardens. Many hybrid teas require, not only improved soil (which is an easy thing to provide) but also heavy doses of fungicides. This addiction to chemicals is an unnecessary and unhealthy way to garden. Chose an alternative. Learn the choices. There are other roses one can grow here. Chose non-fussy antique China roses that perform well in zones 10 or 9 for a south Florida garden instead of sickly chemical dependent hybrid teas, which will not thrive in our humidity and heat.

When planting a suitable rose, amend the alkaline sandy soil with some compost and milled spaghnum peat moss and place the rose in full sun and you have the glory of roses without the chemicals.

Learn about the alternatives to your finicky plants and grasses. It is unnecessary to keep injecting so many chemicals into our living landscape, our food supply, our bodies.

Posted in Green Gardening | 1 Comment »